stephanie’s bakery in san diego

long before cruzer, purgatory, or zpizza were serving up daiya cheese-covered pies, stephanie’s bakery in san diego was known for its vegan pizza. the small family-run business has been around for over a decade, and specializes in entirely vegan, organic cuisine with no processed sugar or hydrogenated oils.

when we hit up stephanie’s for lunch recently, the place was packed. the line (which thankfully moved quickly) was out the door, and almost all the seats were taken….however, we were lucky enough to grab the very last table inside.

i had looked at stephanie’s menu online, and came craving a savory mushroom strudel. unfortunately, when i tried to order one, the guy at the counter said they were in the process of changing their menu and only had the spinach strudel available. i got one of those, and it turned out to be excellent.

the strudel was basically a mixture of herbs, spinach, and vegan cream cheese all wrapped up in a flaky and delicious crust. it was perfectly warm, soft, and comforting—and a good value for just 3 bucks. while i’m bummed out they only had one strudel flavor on deck when i was there, at least i can say it was a really good one.

my husband and i also got a small vegan pizza to share. stephanie’s has lots of nice-sounding pizzas to choose from, but we decided to build our own with vegan mozzarella, pepperoni, and mushrooms. i’m sorry to say that after all the hype i’d been hearing about stephanie’s, i thought this pizza was just “okay”. admittedly, they did an absolutely amazing job with follow your heart cheese (which i usually am not a fan of)….but i thought the crust was lacking. maybe it was just undercooked, or they were having an off day…but the dough was a bit soft and flavorless.

chocolate chip cookie. $2

we also got a chocolate chip cookie to share, which turned out to a bit underwhelming. it was huge and warm (so it was probably freshly baked), but overall it was just a bit hard. i like my bakery cookies soft and moist, not crispy.

while i’m convinced you can get much better pizza here in LA, stephanie’s is definitely worth checking out when you are down south. the place is 100% vegan, the prices are fair, and the food is decent. not to mention the people who own it/work there are extremely friendly. i would highly recommend you hit up stephanie’s and get yourself all the savory strudel flavors they have available. give there pizza a try as well, your experience may differ from ours.

12 responses to “stephanie’s bakery in san diego”

I know I hyped it up a lot to you but I stand by my hype! Haha I was eating pizza there like an hour before you and the crust was my fav part but to each their own 🙂 , the banana rum cake they had that day was amazing as well!

As a native San Diegan who has moved away, I tried Stephanie’s for the first time a few months back and was blown away. Their German chocolate cake was the best cake I’ve had in my whole life. The brownie I got was fudgy and delicious and their cinnamon rolls are something I’m still dreaming about. The people that worked there were so very kind and assisting and I can’t wait to go back. Hope you’re able to try them again some time in the future!

My husband and I were in San Diego this past weekend, and we tried Stephanie’s pizza – we thought it was amazing. We both really liked how the FYH cheese melted and the crust was thick and doughy, but I wouldn’t say it was undercooked at all – it was just right! I was a die-hard fan of Daiya, but now that I know FYH can melt so well, I will have to experiment with it some more to see if I can get such good results at home. (I have been known to use a propane torch to get it to melt in the past! Daiya makes a kick-ass grilled cheese, but I think the texture is a little too creamy for pizza.) Anyway, Stephanie’s chocolate chip cookies were chewy and sugary and delicious for our dessert! I’ll definitely go back for more next time we go to San Diego!

When I visited in May of this year, I was disappointed to find that their once-amazing strudel is now made with phyllo dough. Anyone can take some phyllo dough and fold it around some cherries or chocolate chips. As long as they continue to make their strudel this way, going to Stephanie’s is no longer a treat and no longer worth going out of your way for. If you haven’t had Stephanie’s old-style strudel, made with actual pastry, you are truly missing out.

I agree with former San diegan. The strudel used to be the best EVER! Now it is not that great. She is only doing two strudels daily. It used to be about 8. 4 veggie and 4 sweet.
Dont get me wrong, I love her cakes. She always does our cakes and I adore her. I have been going there for the last 10 years. But I do wish she would bring the old dough back!